The Keep of Fire (66 page)

“So now what?” Beltan said. “We’ve only got a few more minutes until they get here.”

Melia folded her arms. “We have to find where he’s hidden the Stone of Fire.”

“Is this Stone something precious?” Inara said.

Travis squeezed his right hand shut. “You might say that, Your Majesty.”

Inara moved to the window and opened the shutters. “There, the mist is clearing now—do you see it? The slender tower with two horns at its summit. All but Dakarreth are forbidden to enter that tower, and he goes there often late at night.”

“That’s got to be it,” Grace said.

In moments they had sketched out a plan, although to call it desperate was far too generous. Aryn would accompany the queen back to her chamber—the serving maid was quite beyond use at the moment—in case Dakarreth came looking for Inara. In such an event, Aryn and Inara were to delay him in any way possible without putting themselves at risk.

Beltan’s task was to follow a map drawn by Aldeth to a hidden portal in the castle’s south wall, at the level of the lake. He was to unlock the door and wait for Falken, Lirith, and Durge to arrive there by boat—for Aldeth had made a plan earlier to meet the bard and his companions there at moonset. Aldeth had another task now. He was to show Melia the way to Dakarreth’s tower. And Travis was coming with them.

“Only you can touch the Stone, dear,” Melia said. “You saw what a small grain flecked from its surface did to me.”

Beltan started toward the door, then hesitated. “And what of Grace?”

“I’m going with Melia and Travis.”

Melia arched an eyebrow. “And Tira, dear?”

Grace gripped the girl’s shoulders.

“She can’t stay here alone,” Travis said.

Melia nodded, and Grace sighed.

Beltan moved to the secret passage. “Let’s go then.”

With his left hand Travis gripped the runestaff Oragien had given him. He had no idea how to use it—or if it did anything at all—but if nothing else it would keep him from falling down. He glanced at Beltan, to wish him luck, but the knight turned his back and disappeared into the gloom of the passageway. Aryn and the queen followed, propelling the weeping serving maid between them.

Aldeth glanced at Melia. “Ready, my lady?”

“Lead the way,” she said.

Travis wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard the echo of booted feet in the corridor outside Melia’s chamber. Then Aldeth pulled the secret door shut behind them, and they were in darkness.

Light flared. Aldeth held a candle in a tin lantern. “This way,” he said.

Melia followed the Spider, Grace and Tira behind her, while Travis brought up the rear. Sooner than Travis had expected they came to a halt. The passage ended in a door of thick wood planks bound with rusted iron bands.

Aldeth shut the lantern, dimming the light. “This door leads into the regent’s tower.” He tried the handle, but the door did not budge. “It’s locked. It will take me a few minutes to open it.” He pulled a thin wire from a pocket.

Travis stepped forward. “No, let me try.”

Before Aldeth could protest, Travis laid a hand on the door and whispered a word.
“Urath.”

There was a faint
snick
, and the door swung open. Beyond was darkness.

Aldeth shot him an impressed look. “There is more to you than meets the eye, Travis Wilder.”

Melia patted Travis’s scruffy cheek. “So we’ve learned.”

“Come on,” Grace said, moving through the door with Tira in tow. The others followed up a spiral staircase.

“Is he here, Melia?” Travis whispered after a few steps.

“I don’t sense him within. But there’s something … wrong here all the same.”

That goes without saying
, Travis nearly muttered, but he bit his tongue as they ascended through shadow and silence.

“We are near the top now, I think,” Aldeth whispered, as they stopped before another door.

Travis ground his teeth together. As they climbed, a wave of dread had risen inside him with every step, and now it threatened to crest.
We should have been stopped by now. If this is where he’s keeping the Stone, where are his defenses?

“There’s no use waiting,” Melia said.

Travis reached for the door, but when Aldeth pushed against the wood it opened. Together they stepped into the circular space beyond.

Aldeth was right. This was the highest chamber in the tower. Through narrow windows he glimpsed the castle all around. Torches burned in iron sconces, obviating the need for Aldeth’s lantern. Travis took a staggering step forward. The wave of dread broke, filling him with watery fear.

“There’s nothing here,” he said.

The others gathered to either side of him, staring as he did at the empty room. They had come here for nothing.

“No,” Grace said. “Look.”

Travis followed her gaze. On the farside of the chamber, something hung on the wall. It looked like a bundle of rags. He approached with the others. Then, when they reached the center of the room, they stopped. Bile rose in Travis’s throat, and he gripped the runestaff. It wasn’t a bundle of rags. Rather it was
a man nailed to the stone wall with iron spikes, his face twisted into a wide-eyed mask of horror and death.

Grace clutched Tira, trying to turn the girl away from the grisly sight.

Aldeth swore. “Lord Siferd!”

Only as the Spider said this did Travis realize it was indeed the chamberlain crucified to the wall.

Melia’s eyes shone with sorrow. “It seems this is what happens to those who displease Dakarreth.”

“As you will all soon discover for yourselves, Great Lady,” a voice as harsh as smoke said behind them.

They turned to see a man in a dirty robe the color of ashes step through the door. The scent of rot rose on the air. Aldeth drew the dagger from his boot, but Melia held him back with a hand. She stepped forward.

“Who are you? I demand you reveal yourself.”

A cackling laugh. “As you wish, Great Lady.”

The man lifted hands that were oozing and twisted, then pushed back the hood of his robe. Two words escaped Travis like a gasp of pain.

“Master Eriaun!”

The runespeaker grinned, teeth white in the blackened ruin of his face. “It’s so good to see you again, Master Wilder.”

Beltan moved deeper into steam-filled catacombs, his bare feet silent on slick tiles.

By Vathris, you had better be sure of what you’re doing, Beltan of Calavan. You had better be sure
.

But it was far too late to question his decision. Beltan moved past pools of hot water fed by ceramic
pipes. Water dripped from arches that spanned overhead. The baths of Spardis had been fashioned centuries ago in emulation of the old Tarrasian style. A series of rectangular pools allowed the bather to grow used to immersion in increasingly hot water. Blue mosaic dolphins swam beneath the water, and green tile waves flowed on the walls.

It had been easy to discover where to find the regent—too easy for Beltan’s liking. After asking only a few questions, a servingman had taken him to the entrance of the baths. He had feared guards would prevent his entering. However, on stepping into the moist-aired antechamber, he had found only a pair of naked boys, perfumed oil in their dark hair, gold rings adorning their wrists, ankles, throats.

Without words, the boys had taken Beltan’s sword, then had undressed him with deft movements. In return they had given him a short linen kilt to wrap around his waist. The boys had watched in silence as he took a dagger from his folded tunic and slipped it beneath the kilt. They had gazed with placid brown eyes as he stepped through an archway into the baths beyond.

Now, as he walked, he could feel the blade, hot against his skin. He touched it beneath the fabric of the kilt, making sure it was still hidden and secure. Sweat beaded on his skin, and he pushed wet hair back from his brow.

“Where are you, Dakarreth?” His whisper merged with the hiss of vapor. “Where are you?”

His eyes slid across a mosaic of brown-skinned men in a boat spearing black seals in azure water. Had the moon set yet? Had Falken, Durge, and Lirith reached the hidden door in their own boat? Perhaps, but there was no way to be sure of the time.

Earlier, he had found the door that the Spider Aldeth had described. He had opened it to find the misty waters of the lake lapping beyond. For a time
he had peered into the gloom, waiting for the bard and the others to arrive. But waiting was not something Beltan was good at. He took a piece of charcoal from a burnt torch and, on the back of the map Aldeth had drawn, he had written the best letters he could manage:

He had left the note wedged in the door, then had gone to find the regent. Melia and Travis needed time to find the Stone of Fire, and he was going to make sure they had it. Maybe it would be the last act of service he would ever do for them—he knew he was no match for a former god—but what better way for a Knight Protector to die than in the course of duty?

Besides, it wasn’t as if Melia needed him. Beltan had always known it—that as a former goddess herself she was as far above him as the moon in the sky. But for his sake, out of kindness, or perhaps out of pity, she had accepted his pledge. And even though he knew better, he had let himself believe that he truly had the power to protect her.

Of course, Melia was not his only ward.
And Travis needs you even less than she does, Beltan. You’re worse than an idiot because you asked for something you already knew you couldn’t have. You might have been content with his friendship, but you had to go and muck even that up
.

He could still see the horror in Travis’s eyes that moment beside the chasm, after they had defeated Eriaun and the
krondrim
, when Beltan had reached for Travis and had told him the truth in his heart.

Get away from me!

And what had he been thinking? Obviously Travis hadn’t heard the call of the bull, not like Beltan—and
like so many who found their way to Vathris’s innermost circles—who had known at a young age that his was a destiny not shared by most men.

A sound echoed off the tiles all around: the splashing of water. Beltan came to a halt, his hand pressing against the knife beneath the kilt. He peered ahead, but the steam rolled thickly on the air.

“Is someone there?” he called, his voice echoing.

Silence, then the sound of water again, followed by a voice as burnished as gold. “Come nearer.”

Despite the warmth and sweat, Beltan shivered. Then he stepped between two columns. The vapor swirled, parting before him. He stood on the edge of a grotto, at the edge of what was certainly the last and hottest of the pools. Crisp curls rose from the surface of the water like steam from a cup of freshly brewed
maddok
.

A man stood in the pool, immersed to the neck, his face turned away. Beltan could see only his tawny hair; the bubbling water obscured all else. The knight opened his mouth, but the other spoke first.

“I knew you would come to me, Sir Beltan. I knew it when I saw your eyes upon me at table this evening, try as you did to conceal your glances from me. But you cannot hide from fate. You see, we are meant to be together, you and I.”

Beltan fought for something to say, but speech escaped him. If he had expected any words from the other, certainly it had not been these. A heat rose in him with the steam. He stepped to the edge of the pool and gazed down. Beltan did not need to test the water to know it would scald the flesh from his bones if he were to set foot in it.

The man in the pool turned and ascended tiled steps, rising from the water. Beltan stared, unable to move.

While he had been beautiful at supper in the great hall, Dakarreth’s appearance then had been but the
barest shadow of what it was now. His golden skin glowed from the heat of the pool, and his eyes were molten. Water beaded on his oiled body, and his naked flesh was smooth and hairless, revealing each line and muscle beneath. In every way his proportions were those of an ancient hero hewn from marble: shoulders broad, waist slender, phallus thick and jutting.

Beltan’s knees became jelly, and he fought the desire to fall to the tiles and prostrate himself there. Dakarreth looked like a god.

By Vathris, he
is
a god, Beltan. Or he was, at any rate. And he seeks to become one again
.

And why shouldn’t he? Seeing Dakarreth now in his naked splendor, it seemed ridiculous that others should not worship him, and Beltan among them.

No, that’s not why you came here
. Beltan clenched his jaw and locked his knees. No matter what, he would stand.

Dakarreth ascended the last step from the water. A towel rested on a bench, but he did not pick it up. Instead, moisture evaporated from his skin in visible coils of steam.

“Your companions seek to destroy me, Sir Beltan.” Even speaking terrible words, his voice was rich and compelling. “But they cannot be allowed to succeed. You know that, of course. And nor will they, for I have sent a slave to deal with them.”

So, you can’t do your own dirty work?
Beltan tried to say, but once again his lips would not form words.

“I spoke truth earlier,” Dakarreth said, his molten eyes gleaming. “I do need a warrior to stand beside me, to smite down all who would oppose me that I might shine all the brighter. And I would have you for that warrior. Your face and body are crude, of course, if not unmanly in their way. But that is of little concern. I can mold flesh like clay, into any shape I please. But there is a fire in you that is not so easily
found or created. That is what I require.” He reached out his hand. “Come with me, Sir Beltan. I can create a new body to house the fire of your spirit, one that is both beautiful and immortal.”

Bile rose in Beltan’s throat.
You can burn me, you mean
.

He wanted to flee this place, but as he had vowed he forced himself to stand. Any time he might buy for the others was worth it, whatever the cost. At last he managed to speak. “Show me.”